Champions (Earth-616)
One of the people encouraged by Ms. Marvel's words was the younger Cyclops, who was admitted into the Champions' ranks after requesting to join them. Courtesy of Amadeus' new vehicle, the Champions' Crate, they next traveled to Lasibad, Sharzhad where they secretly helped a group of young women, led by Amal, rout a faction of militant fundamentalists seeking to oppress them; however, they were shot out of the sky when they attempted to leave. After landing in the water, the Champions started to head towards a piece of land that Viv saw, with Hulk and Cyclops moving the ship. They got to the area where Viv saw, but instead of land they saw an Atlantean craft and were taken by their forces. They worked together to defeat the Atlanteans and left. But somewhere else, they inspired another hero: Gwenpool. Sometime after their Atlantean encounter, Sam Alexander met up with Amadeus Cho to verify that Richard Rider was who he said he was and that he had actually returned from the dead. Amadeus confirmed this, and the other Champions arrived to meet the recently resurrected hero. They informed Rich of what had been happening, with discussion ranging from the recent Civil War, the Vision's family, Past Cyclops coming to the future, and Ms. Marvel's, Spider-Man's, and Nova's tenures as Avengers. Rich told them he was previously in the New Warriors, but then he started seeing them as corpses, and because of this, he left Cho's Meat Wagon, with Sam right behind him and Ms. Marvel wondering if it was because she'd made fun of the New Warriors. Standing Against Hate Sometime later in Daly County, the Champions assisted the Police Department with saving some citizens from a burning mosque, over the very vocal disapproval of Sheriff Studdard, the county's recently elected law enforcement official. He initially accused Scott of starting the fire, but the Champions defended Cyclops and started to list off numerous complaints leveled against the Sheriff on social media. When Viv uncovered the remnants of a bomb that came from the police station, Studdard branded them criminals. Meanwhile, Nova saw a figure off in the distance taking something and moved to intercept, discovering Gwenpool, who told Sam to leave the area. Suddenly, there was an explosion, which destroyed a nearby police cruiser, and was taken as a cue for the team and Gwenpool to flee the scene. Gwen later tried to defend her actions, and Viv agreed she was right, though it wasn't poison in the air, rather it was hate. Later that night, the Champions stopped more hate crimes and decided their best action was to confront Deputy Sims regarding his failure to stand up to Sheriff Studdard. Sims promised the teens that Studdard would be prosecuted, but not until after things had cooled down due to his overwhelming popularity with their constituents. The team retreated to the roof, where they tried to concoct a plan, but none of them worked without them punching down against unpowered citizens, something they now refused to take part in. After Studdard dressed down Sims for having allowed the Champions to stay in Daly County, the Deputy changed his mind and addressed the voters concerning the reality that it was the Sheriff who had been facilitating the recent wave of xenophobic violence towards minorities. Annoyed that it wasn't secretly a plot by some well known villain after all, Gwenpool promptly left. Monsters Unleashed When the Champions learn of an incident involving Roxxon Oil and the Angeles National Forest, they gathered in California to investigate, but instead ran into a team of other super-powered people, the Freelancers, a group of mercenaries whose mission was to burn down the forest in order to frame the protesters and secure the site for construction of a pipeline. The two teams tried to reason with each other, but when one of the members, Cursed Cass, had in fact been instructed to set off a bomb, and a brawl between the two teams ensued. Cyclops notices that Hotness, who has pyrokinetic abilities, was missing, so Spider-Man and Nova went to find him. They discovered Hotness in the woods but were almost immediately confronted by a massive Leviathon. Ms. Marvel asked if the monster was with the Freelancers, but they responded that it wasn't, so she and Viv rushed the civilians to a nearby bus in hopes of spiriting them away from the battle as the others dealt with the new threat. Unfortunately a second member of the Leviathon Tide blocked the road, forcing Kamala face it alone. Meanwhile, the Freelancers and the rest of the Champions killed the first monster and arrived to aid Ms. Marvel, who nearly died facing the second Leviathon, though Viv restarted her heart to revive her. A third monster was then detected heading for Los Angeles, and the Champions left to handle with it. Inhumans vs. X-Men After Mosaic temporarily possessed Cyclops, he and Forge convinced a group of NuHumans, including his teammate Ms. Marvel, to switch sides and aid the Mutants in their quest to remove the Terrigen Mist from the Earth's atmosphere. Misunderstanding this new alliance, and seeing Scott with the enemy, Emma Frost promptly attacked him, forcing Kamala to spring to his defense. Freelancers When the team realized that they have gone global with people using their logo for good things like beach-cleaning and recycling, self-defense classes, and helping build houses, they went to celebrate by playing paintball against each other, with Ms. Marvel, Viv, and Cyclops on one team and Nova, Spider-Man, and Hulk on another with their powers intact. Nova and his team win thanks to a technicality, but them and the rest of the team were quickly shot with paintballs by Viv's father: the Vision. But what they didn't know was that a major company was sponsoring their opposites, the Freelancers, whom they met during the world-wide monster invasion and who tricked a couple of homeless people to say that it was the Champions who attacked them. The Champions encountered them again as they were forcibly evicting people from their homes, and a confrontation ensued, which only lasted until Freelancer Panic used her fear-inducing powers against Ms. Marvel to confront her with her worst fear; this only earned Panic a well-deserved beatdown, as the thing Ms. Marvel feared the most was losing everything the Champions had worked to build. Seeing themselves now on the losing side, the Freelancers called off the fight and agreed to come clean about their attack on the homeless people, but soon after Might revealed that the Champions logo had been trademarked as a brand name, as another move by the Freelancers' employers to discredit the team. Disheartened with the team now being viewed at large as sellouts, Ms. Marvel thought of quitting, and the team members were left adrift, but Nova recorded a video of himself burning Champions-branded merchandise and urging the people who truly believed in the Champions to do the same, recovering their spirit. Despite having been grounded by her father due to her extended absences from home, Viv slipped out to travel to San Diego in order to track down activity from the Freelancers. She came across a new superheroine known as the Red Locust, with whom Viv teamed up to shut down a drug factory staffed by wayward youngsters. Secret Empire When Hydra assumed control of the United States of America, Amadeus, Viv, and Miles joined the Underground where they associated with Ironheart, Wasp, Falcon, and Patriot, as Ms. Marvel had gone into hiding due to Inhumans being rounded up and sent to interment camps, Cyclops was with the Young X-Men in New Tian, and Nova was trapped beyond the Planetary Defense Shield in Earth Orbit. | Equipment = Cyclops Visor, Ms. Marvel's Suit, Nova Helmet, Spider-Man's Suit, Web-Shooters, X-Uniform | Transportation = Cho's Meat Wagon; formerly Champions' Crate | Weapons = | Notes = | Trivia = | Links = }}